


Version 1 – How Simmons met Fitz.

by stjarna



Series: “Leopold Fitz, engineering” – “Jemma Simmons, bio-chem” [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, Bus Kids - Freeform, Developing Friendships, First Meetings, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s01e22 Beginning of the End, Prevented rape/non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rescue, SHIELD Academy, Some bus kids, end of season 1, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7921483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/pseuds/stjarna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Jemma sits by Fitz's hospital bed after the Season 1 finale, she tells Skye the story of how they met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The monotone beeping of the medical equipment around his hospital bed echoes through her brain. The chair she is sitting on is becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Her body is aching, as she sits slightly hunched over, his right hand resting between hers. He’s pale, so incredibly pale.

_Come on, Fitz_ , she pleads with him silently, _Wake up!_

Nine days.

It had been nine days since Fury’s hand had reached for hers, as she struggled to keep herself and Fitz afloat in the middle of the ocean. Nine days since Fury pulled them into the helicopter. Nine days since she woke up in the decompression chamber, where Fury told her how things stood with Fitz. Nine days of sitting by his side, holding his hand, while their friends and colleagues pleaded with her to get rest, to eat, to take care of herself. But she wouldn’t leave. She only slept when her tired body forced her to close her eyes for a few hours. She only ate when her friends stopped by with food.

Nine days.

“Hey there,” Skye’s voice startles her for a moment.

“Hey,” she replies quietly as Skye walks to the other side of the hospital bed and pulls up a chair.

“No changes, hm?” Skye asks.

“No,” Jemma sighs, tears in her bloodshot, tired eyes.

They fall silent for a few moments.

“Did Fitz ever tell you how we met?” Jemma says suddenly, a hint of a smile on her face. She’s not sure why she is bringing up that story. Maybe nine days of silence were all she was able to take.

“You were assigned lab partners at the Academy, right?” Skye asks somewhat confused.

Jemma chuckles, “So he told you the official version.”

Skye doesn’t answer, but her questioning stare speaks volumes.

“It was early during my first semester at the Academy,” Jemma begins, while her hand absentmindedly strokes Fitz’s, “I went on a few dates with this guy from Operations, Ron. He was good looking, charming… but very soon, he became bossy and possessive and I quickly had enough of him and broke things off.”

“Sounds like a jerk,” Skye interjects.

“Most definitely. A ‘bad seed’, you could say,” Jemma responds, “He wouldn’t take no for an answer, kept calling, waited for me outside class. I told him to stop, but he… just… he didn’t care.”


	2. Flashback

The night was pitch-black, clouds covering the sky, taking away what little light the moon would have provided. She had been working late on a project at the lab. Everyone else had left hours ago. The footpaths across campus are completely deserted as she is heading back to her dorm room. The crunching of her own footsteps are all she hears.

Suddenly, out of the shadows of a tall tree, he steps in front of her. Her heart starts racing. His eyes are staring at her full of anger.

“Leave me alone, Ron!” she says sternly and tries to quickly walk by him.

He grabs her upper arm, so tightly that pain shoots into her shoulder. She looks at him. Tries to free her arm.

“Let go!” she says through her teeth, trying not to let him see her fear.

“You’re not getting away,” he growls and jerks on her arm, pulling her off the path into the dark shadows.

She tries to scream, but he presses his hand onto her mouth, silencing her voice. He pushes her to the ground, and uses his free hand to choke her.

She is struggling, trying to free herself. She hears her ribs crack under his weight, under his force. Feels her strength dwindling. She exhales sharply as he removes his hands from her mouth and throat to rip her shirt open. She tries moving her arms, her legs, anything to try and free herself, but he has her pinned down to the ground. She wants to scream, but no sound can escape her mouth before he presses his hand back onto it. He leans closer. His face only inches away from hers. The smell of his breath is making her nauseous. “Nice try, bitch. But you’re not getting away,” he threatens her, “I’m being trained not to let people get away.” Tears shoot into her eyes. Her conscious wants to drift off and make it all stop.

Suddenly, she feels Ron’s weight being lifted off her. It takes her a moment to realize that somebody pulled him off her. She’s numb. Her vision blurry, her ears ringing. Her brain feverishly trying to catch up with the situation. She lifts her head and sees the silhouette of a scrawny guy with curly hair.

“Get off her, you bloody bastard,” the figure screams at Ron in a thick Scottish accent.

She’s blinking, trying to get her eyes to adjust. She sees Ron taking a few steps towards the other guy, raising his fist and punching him hard in the face. The force of the punch lets the scrawny figure fly to the ground next to her. She looks over and recognizes him from one of her classes. Her brain intuitively runs through the mental image of her class list, and stops when she finds him: Leopold Fitz, an engineering major.

“Do you really think you can stop me, you little punk?” The sound of Ron’s hate-filled voice draws Jemma’s eyes back to him. He’s towering over them, glaring. Jemma’s heart is racing. _If looks could kill_ , she thinks. She follows his stare back to Leopold, who doesn’t show any indication of wanting to try and get back up. He just sits in the grass, breathing heavily, wiping the blood dripping from his nose. Yet, he is staring back, with a determination Jemma never expected from the quiet engineer who seemed to always keep to himself.

“Stop you?” he says slightly out of breath, “No, probably not. But remember orientation week?” He lifts his arm and points toward the footpath. Jemma’s eyes follow his movements, trying to figure out what he’s pointing at. “Three minutes!” he yells at Ron, “ _Three minutes_. That’s the longest it takes for campus police to show up after you press one of those emergency columns.” Her eyes catch a glimpse of the red column with its shimmering blue light a little way down the footpath. “Maybe I can’t stop you,” his voice brings her attention back to him, “but I’m fairly certain I can stall you for three minutes, even if it costs me a bloody nose and some broken ribs.’”

Jemma nervously looks at Ron. His eyes are still full of anger, full of rage and hate, but something else appears: a sense of panic.

“Fuck!” Ron yells. He takes a few steps towards Leopold and kicks him in the ribcage before he takes off running.

Jemma is in a complete daze. She feels like she is not even there, just watching a scene unfold around her. The screeching sounds of a breaking bicycle catch her attention. “What’s going on here?” she hears the question, and yet can barely get her eyes to focus on the police officer on the bike.

“Sexual assault. White male. Six foot one. Short brown hair. Ran that way,” she hears Leopold reply.

“That true?” the officer asks her, his eyes looking for confirmation. Jemma nods, still unable to talk. Her ears pick up how the officer calls for backup and an ambulance, before he takes off after Ron. Her eyes briefly follow the bicycle. Then she closes them. _Get him, please, get him!_ she pleads with the officer in her mind.

A painful groan grabs her attention. She looks in the direction of the sound and sees Leopold stumbling over to her. His nose is still bloody and he is holding his ribcage. Jemma still can barely believe anything that had happened: the assault, that she got out of it.

He falls to his knees in front of her and struggles to take off his jacket, wincing quietly as he has to twist his bruised torso. He swings the jacket around her shoulders. Her arms are trembling as he helps her into the sleeves. Carefully, he zips up the jacket. Jemma can feel his retained body heat in the liner. A feeling of comfort and safety overcomes her.

He lets go off the zipper and says, “Leopold Fitz, engineering.”

Somehow, his introduction comes unexpected, but it also allows her to refocus her mind for a moment, “I know,” she replies, “We’re in Thermodynamics together.”

He looks somewhat surprised and mumbles, “Just because I’m in a class with someone, doesn’t always mean they know me.”

“Simmons, bio-chem,” Jemma replies, not quite sure how else to respond to his remark.

He shows now reaction, no sign as to whether he had recognized her from class as well.

“They’ll be here soon,” he says and sits down next to her.


	3. Present time

“Later he told me that _of course_ he had memorized the entire class list and knew who I was,” Jemma recounts, her thumb absentmindedly stroking Fitz’s hand.

“Nerd!” Skye says matter-of-factly.

Jemma chuckles, “Well, I had done the same.” She continues here story, “Police and medical showed up after a while and took us to the hospital. We had to wait. My mind was racing. I think my hands were trembling. And all of a sudden, Fitz asks me ‘So, what are you working on?’ It _completely_ caught me off guard but at the same time I was so grateful to have a topic I could talk about. So, I told him what I was working on, what I wanted to specialize in. And he commented on how one of my projects could maybe benefit from one of his engineering designs and that I should talk to Professor Winters in Engineering about it. He kept me talking about science while we were waiting, when the police gave us a ride back to campus. He didn’t allow me to think about what happened. And it was _exactly_ what I needed in that moment.”

“Science to the rescue,” Skye comments.

“Indeed.” Jemma replies quietly, looking at Fitz: unconscious, immobile, pale.

“Did they get Ron?” Skye asks and Jemma nods, while her mind wanders to another part of that night.

“When I got to my dorm room, I realized that I was still wearing Fitz’s jacket.” She pauses for a moment, “I never gave it back to him.”

“He forgot?”

“Oh _please_! Has Fitz _ever_ forgotten anything? – No, I think he knew it made me feel secure. It reminded me of the good that happened that night; not the assault; not the pain; not the fear… the good.”

“You still have it?” Skye asks curiously. Jemma simply nods.

“Well,” she finally says, “news of what happened didn’t spread beyond who was absolutely essential to be informed … That’s how I preferred it. … A few days later, I went to see Professor Winters and Agent Weaver. I mentioned my project and that I had _heard_ that there _might_ be an engineering student who was working on something compatible.”

She sighs, “Winters was so grumpy about it. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I know who you mean, but he really prefers to work alone.’ … Weaver was equally skeptic, but I convinced them to introduce me to Fitz anyways. You should have seen the surprised look on their faces when Fitz reacted really quite positively and enthusiastically to my proposal to work together.”

Jemma takes in a deep breath, “And that was it. We started working together right away and barely spent a day apart since.” She turns silent for a moment, “We never talked about the night we met. He never brought it up. He knew I didn’t want to talk about it. Wasn’t ready to.”

“You _never_ talked about it?” Skye asks surprised.

“Well, I mean, in the beginning,” Jemma clarifies, “It took me quite some time and a good therapist to come to terms with what happened and to be able to talk about it. At first, our relationship was purely professional; lab partners, nothing more.”

“Hard to imagine,” Skye replies, “So, when did it change?”


	4. Flashback

It was a few weeks after they had started working together. Both completely enthralled in one of their new projects, pitching ideas, quarreling about the best approach. Time became irrelevant. They were both focused on their individual tasks—Jemma staring at the results of their latest test run on her laptop screen, Fitz refining one of his engineering designs. Out of nowhere, Jemma’s stomach grumbles loudly. The sound her own body produces surprises her, but apparently not half as much as it surprises Fitz, who drops one of his tools.

“What the hell was that?” he asks, staring at her.

“I suppose I’m a bit hungry,” she replies somewhat apologetically.

“It really is getting late,” he remarks, looking at his watch.

“True, maybe we should call it a night?”

“Really? I feel like we’re so close to a breakthrough.”

“I know, but my body is clearly trying to tell me that…”

“We could order food?”

“Here?”

“Why not?”

“I suppose… How about Indian?”

“In honor of Abhay Ashtekar?”

“Exactly!”

 

* * *

 

Forty-five minutes later, the smell of exotic spices tickles her nose.

They talk about their project at first, but the taste of curry and naan brings back old memories.

“My parents took me to India on vacation once,” she remembers, “The naan there was so fresh, and warm. And it is such a colorful country. I remember just marveling at all those different fabrics. I think I was four or five then.”

“Sounds nice,” he mumbles quietly, dunking a piece of naan into his Tikka Masala.

“So, you’ve never been then, I assume?” she asks.

He looks up, “Umm, no,” he shakes his head, “It’s always been just my mum and me. My dad left when she was pregnant. There wasn’t really much time or money for big vacations.” He pauses, “She took me to London to the Science Museum for my fifth birthday, though. Always did everything she could to quench my science thirst.”

Jemma smiles at the mention of his mom, realizing that this was the first time they were talking about something unrelated to their studies.

She takes heart and decides that it is time.

“I never thanked…,” she begins, but he interrupts her abruptly.

“ _Don’t!_ ” he says sternly, looking directly into her eyes. The sound of his voice surprises her, “I did what was right. I’m not some kind of knight in shining amour. I didn’t do anything special or heroic. I did what was _right_. I called the police. You don’t have to _say_ anything. You don’t _owe_ me anything, not a thank you, _nothing_. Okay?”

She stares at him. He had stopped this horrendous thing from happening, and now he didn’t want to accept a ‘Thank you’? She doesn’t know how to react, doesn’t know what to say.

Awkward silence fills the air as they look at each other.

She sees him inhaling, exhaling. Then his mouth opens slowly, as if he prepares to speak. Her heart starts racing, unsure what else he might have to say.

“I like monkeys.”

She stares at him and wrinkles her forehead, uncertain if she had heard correctly, waiting for an explanation that doesn’t come.

“What?” she finally asks confused.

His Adam’s apple moves up and down as he swallows.

“I like monkeys.”

_So he really did say that_ , she thinks and continues to stare at him.

“I’m no expert in this,” he finally says, “but it seems like we’re developing a kind of friendship. And from what I’ve heard, knowing random facts about each other is a common feature of friendship.”

“Oh!” she says, relieved and touched by his sweet words. Then she admits, “Madame Curie was my imaginary friend when I was younger.”

He doesn’t even bat an eye at her response. Instead he smiles at her and nods.


	5. Epilogue (Present time)

“And so FitzSimmons was born?” Skye asks.

“Pretty much,” Jemma responds. She looks at Fitz pale face once more, his immobile body, “He’s my best friend. I can’t imagine …”

Her voice breaks off…

She stares at her hands, unsure if maybe she just imagined it: a slight tickle against her palm. She lifts her right hand, which is covering his. She stares at his hand, resting on her left hand. Immobile.

“You okay?” she hears Skye’s voice like a faint echo; so focused on Fitz’s hand that everything around her disappears.

His fingers twitch briefly.

“Fitz?” She whispers and looks at his face. Pale. His eyes closed. Unchanged.

She can feel his fingers move again, feels them grabbing her hand, squeezing it weakly. Tears start rolling down her face.

“He’s waking up!”


End file.
